How can Opportunity Zones be a useful investment tool for your community? On August 22, MHP delved into that question on a conference call with more than 100 registrants, moderated by Elizabeth Glidden, MHP Director of Strategic Initiatives & Policy with special guests Mayor Emily Larson, City of Duluth; Amy McCulloch, Deputy Director, Twin Cities LISC; Pam Kramer, Executive Director, Duluth LISC; and Ryan Baumtrog, Assistant Commissioner of Minnesota Housing.

Speakers explored what local communities, as well as development and lending partners, should be considering in advance of more explicit federal and state guidance. They also discussed how to better understand the potential of Opportunity Zones, explore investment funds, develop project pipelines, and establish community values for potential projects. Below, find a recording of the call, additional resources, and responses to questions submitted around the call.

Across the Twin Cities, the growing ranks of renter households are facing an increasingly challenging housing market with rising rents and declining vacancy rates. While developers are leveraging public and private resources to create new affordable units, current owners of unsubsidized rental properties have few tools to preserve and improve aging properties to maintain homes for current and future tenants.

Building on our 2016 "Sold Out" report, Minnesota Housing Partnership launched a new research series tracking key trends in the unsubsidized multifamily rental markets across the Twin Cities.

This second report, published in July 2018, analyzes data for approximately 28,740 unsubsidized rental units in properties with four or more units in Saint Paul from the CoStar database.

Many residents of Minneapolis believe that their city has never had any kind of formal segregation. Part of the "Racism, Rent and Real Estate: Fair Housing Reframed" series, a unique bus tour made visible the structural racism that has undergirded the city’s urban landscape, and illuminated the community solidarity that developed among African Americans in the face of this white hostility.

Co-hosted by Preserve Minneapolis and Mapping Prejudice, "Housing Discrimination Revealed: The History of Race & Real Estate in Minneapolis Bus Tour" drew on the expertise of Kirsten Delegard and Penny Peterson from Mapping Prejudice and Tina Burnside, a local attorney, writer and historian. Filled to capacity, nearly 50 people attended the two-hour tour that traveled from Prospect Park to the Central Neighborhood, exploring the impacts of racial covenants and the history of community resilience.

"Overall, California is home to more veterans than any other state in the country," explains Mark Walbert of the California Department of Veterans Affairs. "We get up to 400 inquiries per month from vets looking to buy a home."

Walbert administers CalVet's Residential Enriched Neighborhoods (REN) program, which utilizes the Enriched neighborhoods model. Developed over 12 years by Homes 4 Families and licensed by CalVet, the Enriched Neighborhoods model builds wealth, stability, and thriving communities for low-income veterans and their families through affordable homeownership and wrap-around services.

"CalVet is a great partner, and they're national leaders in community responsiveness," explains Stacey Chiang, Grant Writer & Corporate Development Associate at Homes 4 Families. "They saw the rising numbers of homeless veterans and the rising housing costs in California and quickly took action."